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GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

bloomberg.com

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Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#171

Post by st3v3r »

gpm wrote: post #161
st3v3r wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not seeing a shred of racism there. I'm seeing a white, straight male not being treated like he's special, and interpreting that as racism.

Read the article linked, some key quotes > "it is very hard to even interview people who are 'white' which makes things challenging" - anonymous insider, presumably someone in a position to interview people > "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" - Lead of social impact team > "This is not work for white folks to lead." - Slide in talk given by above lead > "We need solidarity with our Asian frie…

Not seeing racism. Again, just seeing white men not treated as the default standard, and white people here seeing that as racism.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#172

Post by tannhaeuser »

Fiahil wrote: post #60
mmastrac wrote: post #3

The thought of losing Github to the startup graveyard is kind of scary. It was bad enough to lose Google Code and when SourceForge had their "great purge" of inactive projects.

We'll just move the code to gitlab. Git allow us to do it almost painlessly (well, with a missing issue backlog). It's not a big deal.

We are thoroughly conditioned to use centralized services, aren't we? git is a dvcs for heavens sake.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#173

Post by icebraining »

AceJohnny2 wrote: post #40
ZenoArrow wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, as Git is a DVCS even if GitHub went down the repos still live on local developer machines, so it'd be easy enough to move to a different Git hosting provider.

People keep bringing that up, but that's missing the bigger picture: GitHub is more than just a git host, it's also a "social hub" where people can fork repos and offer changes back (pull requests), a passable bugtracker (issues), even wiki, and even web host (github.io). Many people have warned that using these added-value features makes you dependent on GitHub (Linus Torvalds has a kernel mirror on GitHub, but for…

Joey Hess' github-backup backs up everything github knows about a repository (including branches, tags, other forks, issues, comments, wikis, milestones, pull requests, watchers, and stars) to the repository.

I'm sure most of these could be re-imported into an alternative service through its API, even if with some loss of fidelity.

https://github.com/joeyh/github-backup

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#174

Post by palunon »

rajathagasthya wrote: post #107
ocschwar wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate how GitHub's software platform makes migration elsewhere much easier, making me less leveraged by GitHub the company. That, ironically, makes me REALLY not want them to go under: they don't deserve to.

Isn't the migration easier because it's just a git repo? I'm curious how GitHub's software platform specifically facilitates easy migration.

The git repo itself is trivial to migrate (you already have a full copy, just push it somewhere else).

The problems are issues, code comments, pull request discussions, etc, which may be harder, and their API helps here.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#175

Post by throwanem »

connorshea wrote: post #160
fbnlsr wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using both Gitlab and Github for different projects, and I just can't stand Gitlab's interface. Informations are scattered all around the place and there's no distinctive way of finding the information you want. Plus it's slow as hell. Github's UI makes sense. I can find anything in the blink of an eye and it's blazing fast. The team I'm currently working with is completely fed up with Gitlab.

Are you using GitLab.com or hosting it yourself? We're working on improving GitLab.com, but self-hosting GitLab should be pretty fast in most circumstances. As for the interface, we're working on improving the design of the product and have just hired a UX Researcher to help with that. Would be happy to hear any specifics you have to offer.

Searching an issue number in the list page's text input should take me to the issue. Sounds small but it's a frequent irritation; I will be 200% happier with Gitlab once it's solved, and my teammates even more so.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#176

Post by cyphar »

I'm surprised that they actually have a recreation of the oval office in their office. How arrogant and self-important do you have to be to honestly believe that such a parody is in any way justified? No, GitHub, you're not in charge of the free software world. You were just the first decent choice for code hosting. GitLab is eating your lunch and you're pretending that it's not happening.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#177

Post by cstavish »

bmelton wrote: post #147
DrJokepu wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know nothing about investing but I feel somewhat skeptical about these arguments. How many startups actually failed because they were using a poor package manager or source control host?

This sounds more like a spin-off of the old investment adage: "Buy stock in the products you actually use." If you spin that argument slightly as a proxy purchase, it makes sense that VCs would be investing in the products that their other startups are using heavily. As an super-small-time investor who only owns stock in companies whose products that I use and enjoy, I can't knock them for it. For me, the logic is th…

> as I don't know if pulling venture capital is as easy as selling the stock.

There's generally minimal liquidity. During a round, an existing investor may have the opportunity to sell some shares to new/other investors, but if she knows something that's not coming out during diligence, there's definitely something fishy going on. If the round is shaping up to be a major up-round, maybe an early investor wants to lock in a good return, but that's beside the point here. And then of course if things really aren't going well for the company, you're looking at the bad kind of liquidity event--a liquidation.

So if a VC wants to pull out based on a negative hunch, it's probably either impossible or the signal itself will doom the company if it wasn't already doomed.

Just my 2 cents as a first-time founder.

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#178

Post by [deleted] »

josho wrote: post #102

This is an example of how VCs distort the market for other businesses. I had a recent conversation with a prospect and they took issue with the price of our software. Our app is in a specialized industry (ie. a smaller market). We charge a per use fee of $35. This fee enables our customer to immediately earn nearly $200 (a 5x return with no risk to them). Despite the significant benefit and profitability of using the…

[deleted]

Re: GitHub lost $66M in nine months of 2016

#179

Post by cyphar »

st3v3r wrote: post #171
gpm wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the article linked, some key quotes > "it is very hard to even interview people who are 'white' which makes things challenging" - anonymous insider, presumably someone in a position to interview people > "Some of the biggest barriers to progress are white women" - Lead of social impact team > "This is not work for white folks to lead." - Slide in talk given by above lead > "We need solidarity with our Asian frie…

Not seeing racism. Again, just seeing white men not treated as the default standard, and white people here seeing that as racism.

Here's an easy test to see if such statements are racist. Swap "white" for any other race. If it sounds like racism, then the original statement is by necessity also racist.
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